Linus Torvalds on requiring the root password for mundane tasks. "So here's a plea: if you have anything to do with security in a distro, and think that my kids (replace 'my kids' with 'sales people on the road' if you think your main customers are businesses) need to have the root password to access some wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-and-time settings, please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place." Yes, it's harsh (deal with it, Finns don't beat around the bush), but he's completely and utterly right. While there's cases where it makes sense to disable certain settings (public terminals, for instance), it is utterly idiotic that regular home users have to type in their root password for such mundane tasks.

Policykit is design for the particular problem. Because it approve applications to do things.

sudo becomes unworkable as so as you try filtering to applications.

"I own the world" type of permission. Is what the problem is. Policykit provides another set of permissions. This application is trusted todo the following. And only this app. Even if the app is trusted it then asks the user the first time they use that app if they do wish to use its privileged options.

This is creating true secuirty by obscurity. Because attacker has to know what application you use for task not to be noticed.